The Duggers Aren't The Only Family

I've been writing this article for many days now. I know it's now been almost a week since Josh Dugger became a nationwide sensation after the accusations of him molesting five young girls came to light. I tried to write about this all before, but I could not face all the pain at one time. It's easier to point fingers than to admit that you were sexually assaulted while in a cult that teaches you it was your fault that you were sexually assaulted. For some of us, it's taken days just to write out the simple words: I was a victim of sexual exploration. It's something awful. It's devastating. It's life-changing. I had to write this article slowly because it is so painful. I had to write this article slowly so that my own body could process the trauma. Let me tell you my story.

Today I cried while reading articles about the Duggers. I cried because I felt like I was fighting a losing battle. I felt that once again my voice and the voice of many other victims was not being heard. I cried when I read the article "The Duggers are Not Hypocrites. Progressives Are." This article hurt so much because it was silencing once again the tiny voices of the Invisible Daughters who were daring to speak out. Not once did the article mention those poor girls. Not once did the article even mention that Josh Duggar’s action may have actually hurt someone or even destroyed some lives. The article called me a hypocrite because I am a "Progressive." I'm writing here today to say that I am not a hypocrite. I don't care if the Duggers are hypocrites, but I am not. I have my own story to tell and I am going to tell it to you today for the first time ever.

I met the Duggers before there were 19 kids in the family and before they were on TV. It was sometime in 2005 to 2006. Because my parent's beliefs slightly aligned with those of the Dugger's, we would interact occasionally. Back then, there was nothing impressive about them to our family. They weren't even the biggest family around at that time. Although the Duggers did follow the same teachings in childrearing as my parents, my parent's other beliefs in faith did vary from the Duggers and thus we did not meet with the Duggers very often. They were some of the "liberal" patriarchal Christians in the area. I've met the Duggers because they had similar beliefs to my parents. And it turns out my story is even closer to them than I thought.

I was a victim of sexual exploration. This is the first time I´ve ever mentioned anything about being a victim. I've never told anyone this story. I never want any of my family to find out. I never want my Dad or Mother to know. I never want my sisters to know. I never want my other brothers to know. I never want my husband to know. I never want any of my friends to know. I'm sure my brother remembers what happened but he's never mentioned it and probably never will mention it. I was very close to my older brother. I adored him. I looked up to him. We spent almost every waking hour together from early childhood. We were very close in age and most of our friends were mutual friends. Most of all, I trusted my brother. The day it happened is burned into my brain crystal clear. I couldn't believe that my beloved brother would do something to me that I knew was wrong. My world started spinning out of control that day. It only happened once. I am very thankful for that. I can only imagine what repeated incidents did to those girls.

I kept a secret journal for many years. This journal was given to me by a friend as a birthday present. I never told my Mother about the journal. Instead, I placed it in a ziplock bag and buried it in the back field of our 90 acre farm. That journal was for my deepest secrets. I still kept my everyday journal and my Mother would regularly read through that journal. However, the hidden journal was for my deepest and darkest secrets. I wrote in the secret journal the day my brother exploited me.

September 4, 2004 -- Saturday

We sewed on [Sarah's] dress today. We had fried green tomatoes today.

And the worst thing of all happened today! [Ron] and I went on a bike ride . When we came to the powerlines we stopped to drink water and rest in the shade. I think I will remember the rest. I will not go on another bike ride alone with him for awhile. I thought I was so careful. I listen to Mother. Why did he do this to me? Did I sin against God somehow?!? I'm so scared now. I try so hard to be good and it seems like it never works. Maybe I'm not actually a Christian. Maybe I'm tempting [Ron] to not be a Christian anymore

As I wrote out the dark secret, my writing became smaller and smaller as if it was even to shameful to put into full size text. That was the day I started seeing myself as an awful temptress not worthy of God's love or a husband. That day also shatter my trust in my brothers. I was always taught that my brothers were my protectors and yet I could not even protect myself from them.

Do I think that my brother did something that was wrong? Probably not. But it still affected me. I was still a victim. I will still have to deal with that for the rest of my life. I never wanted any repercussions for my brother for his actions. I never want anyone who knows us to know about the incident. I want it to stay a secret. But that still doesn't mean that it didn't hurt me. That still doesn't mean I didn't need counseling. I don't blame my brother for what happened. I'm embarrassed and ashamed, but I don't hate him.

However, I do blame my parents and the Pearls and the whole fundamental Christian homeschool movement. We had no sex education. We were never even given a book on how our own bodies worked. We never had contact with someone of the opposite sex outside of the family. We were normal, curious children. If we had been a normal family, my brother probably would have taken out his curiosity on his high school crush. Or from some magazines one of his peers managed to find. He would have had a non-destructive outlet for his curiousity. He would have a CONSENSUAL outlet for his curiousity.

Incest was a huge problem in our cult. Even at a young age, I knew that. The summer before my molestation, I listened to a tape series as a young adolescent. I don't remember that name of the tape series. I remember it was made by a woman and I think it was probably Jackie Kenaston. However, all the online searching I did could not produce that tape series. I suspect that it is no longer for sale to the general public. Most of that tape series was pretty unmemorable. Just the usual patriarchal gibberish that girls needed to dress modestly, submit to the men in their lives, and produce many babies. There was one tape that shook me though. This tape addressed incest among the church, although it never gave us that label. The teacher mentioned that there had been several cases in the church of fathers and brothers being attracted to the daughters. The teacher stated that as young girls, we needed to be extra careful to not allow that to happen in our families. She told us that we needed to always dress modestly, never talk about sex with any male family member, and always avoid dangerous situations. Less than two months after listening to that tape series, my Mother pulled me aside and told me I needed to be careful never to be alone with only one brother. She said she was bothered with how close [Ron] and I were getting and it was my responsibility to never be alone with him. Now mind you, this is the Mother that at this point had given me zero sex education. This is the Mother that at this point had given me zero education on my body or even my changing body. I did not even know the term "vagina." And yet here my Mother was telling me that it was my responsibility to never be alone with my brothers for some mysterious reason. My molestation took place the next summer.

Have I forgiven my brother? Probably. Have I forgiven the cult for my sexual abuse? Not in a million years. The Duggar girls have probably forgiven their precious brother, but that does not mean they are okay. That does not mean they are thriving. That does not mean that they are okay with what happened. It's hard when something like that happens when it's someone you love and someone you have been taught you must love for the rest of your life. The hardest part of what happened to me is to realize my brother and I were both victims of the cult. My mind cannot rationalize being angry or resentful of another victim.

The world is working so hard to silence my voice and the many other voices of the Invisible Daughters. Today, my voice is not silenced. Today, I shared my most painful story so that maybe one day some other precious daughter and her brother may both be spared the pain of such a dangerous cult.  

A Week of Memories Day Four: Coming Out about Sexual Abuse

I’ve come to the realization that I cannot write about a new memory/issue every day. It’s just too triggering and traumatic for me. I now have three or four different memories that I’ve started writing about but just couldn’t finish. Most of the time, by the time I got as far as I did, I was experiencing a very bad headache and was in a very bad mood (both signs of a lot of triggering going on for me). 

My mother realized that from an early age I was easily controlled by fear. This was a huge break for my mother who is extremely manipulative and she will probably use that technique over me for the rest of my life. I've grown a tougher skin to my mother's manipulation and have realized how really outlandish her ideas are. I strongly disagree with the means my mother used to manipulate me with fear. One fear she played on me was my fear of sexual assault. Lately I have been trying to come to terms with the question on whether or not I've been sexually abused. My sexual abuse is not something clear-cut and easy to define. My brain has done a wonderful job of blocking many painful memories. And on top of all that, we were repeatedly taught we were raised in a sexual safe haven.

However, I have come to believe that I was sexually abused as a daughter in a fundamentalist homeschooling movement.

One of my first memories of my life (and of my sexual abuse) is on a sweltering hot day. That day one of my brothers needed to go to the doctor because he was sick. That was back when my parents still took us to the doctor when we got sick. Mom left us in the car with all the other siblings because she didn't want to make a scene in the doctors office because we were always too noisy. I remember being covered in sweat and wanting to step out of the car just for a few minutes of fresh air. I also remember I was wearing my favorite grass-green skirt. I was playing with one of my brother's match-box cars in my lap when my mother came back. When my mother came back, she accused me of "playing with myself" (playing with my private parts). I don't know if I was innocently masturbating or really just playing with the car in my lap. I remember being confused because whatever I was doing I didn't think anything was wrong with it. She told me that if she caught me again doing that, she would take me right into the doctor's office and have me checked out for what was wrong with me.

From that interaction, I learned that someone seeing my privates was an extreme humiliation and also could be used as a means of punishment. I learned that I didn't have control over my own body. I learned that if I was doing something that my mother did not like, she could have another person take advantage of my body and violate me. I learned the doctors could be used as a form of punishment. I also learned to be terrified of touching myself, even in ways that I thought were totally appropriate.

Around that time, my brother and I started doing our own exploration. This brother is barely older than me and we went through many stages of our mental development together. We hit a phase of curiosity at the same time, so we turned to each other for answers. We had a game where we would play "penis and bottom." This went on for probably awhile. We would play it whenever we could find some time where no one would interrupt us. I don't remember all that went into the game, but I remember we would draw bottoms and penises and vagina's. I'm pretty sure that's where I learned the name "penis." We would also take turns urinating into the baby's diapers we had stolen from the baby's dresser. Pretty much, we were doing what typical children do when exploring sexuality and sexual differences. But then we got caught. We had gone into my bedroom and locked the door. We thought the family was busy with other things but our dad decided to come get us for some chores. He found the door locked and when we let him in he pretty quickly figured out what was going on. I got a huge spanking from that, got all sweets taken away for a month, and we could never play behind closed doors again. My natural curiosity was met with so much anger and shaming that once again completely confused me.

I think a practice that is common among many fundamentalist families is what my family called bare-bottom spankings. Depending on how bad the infraction was, we had levels of nakedness for our spankings. We would either be spanked just bending over the bed, or we had to pull our dresses up and be spanked with just our underwear on, or we had to pull down our underwear as well to be spanked without any protection while bending over a bed. I don't know if there were any of the popular child raising experts promoting this practice. At some point I'm sure I'll look it up but at this point I know that looking it up will probably trigger me to the point where I won't finish this post, so I'll put looking it up off for now. This whole practice screams inappropriateness to me now. I strongly believe the only time that a child should be seen naked is when he wants to be and is being helped by his parent. For example, help with bathing. By they time the child minds his parents seeing him naked, he is usually bathing by himself. I strongly believe that even if spanking is used, the child should never have to remove clothes to have the spanking performed.

Making a child remove clothes to receive corporal punishment is sexual abuse.

To add to wrongfulness of making children undress to receive punishment, there is the double standard, there is the extreme secretiveness of the children's bodies. We could never talk about our bodies. I remember getting spanked (bare-bottomed) for talking about with my friends what color my underwear was. It was extremely shaming for me to be taught that even talking about the color of my underwear was so extremely inappropriate and yet my dad could deem at what time it was appropriate for him, a man, to see my underwear. Girls are taught such extreme modesty in that culture, and yet at 12 or 14 years old their dads can decide they need to take off their underwear and bend over a bed in front of them?!

I believe that my dad never had an sexual meaning to this practice, but added on top of the extreme modesty culture and my mother's sexual threats, these actions were sexually abusive to me. I believe my mother, however, had full knowledge of the sexuality in these actions and loved to add to the shame by announcing to my friends mother's, in front of my friends, all of my wrong-doings and exactly how they were punished. Once again, she was sexually shaming me and showing me that she had no respect for my body and that my sexuality could be used as a punishment against me.

In the midst of my mother's sexual shaming, I was immersed in a culture of sexual suppression. I was taught that if I did not go to my marriage bed a virgin, it would be the ultimate shame and I could never have a happy marriage. I was taught that no man would ever want me if I was in any way "impure." I was taught that the most important thing I could do before I was married was to remain pure. I was also taught very little on what exactly was remaining pure, since even knowing about sex was not appropriate. I had to keep my body covered at all costs.

When I hit my early teens, I had an issue with bed wetting. I'm not sure if the bed wetting was a result of the sexual abuse or of something else. However, my mother decided that I needed to go to the doctor about it. At this point, we basically never went to the doctor. In fact, I think that was the only time I went to the doctor in about a ten year stretch. Remember back to when my mother used exposing me to the doctor as a punishment? I cried and dreaded the appointment for weeks but nothing I could do could convince my mother to not take me. I went and was forced to have a pelvic exam. I thought I was forever violated. I thought I now had no hope of ever getting a husband. I had been violated, I had lost my purity, all against my will. I had disappointed my mother and she had chosen to have me exposed to the world. I was shamed and permanently scarred.

All throughout these same years, my mother would force me to change my clothes in front of her. I was a good little fundamentalist daughter who was very protective of anyone ever seeing my body. I had learned my lesson and never talked about the color of my underwear. And yet, here my mom was often coming into our room when I was changing. Making my try on different bras in front of her and in front of my older sisters. She once again taught me that I had no control over my body. That my body was something she could use for her every whim.

I think this is probably one of the most disjointed posts I've written, but I think it's because all of these memories are so painful for me. I am proud that I have gotten through this blog post but I don't think I'll be able to read over it for grammar checking so you'll have to excuse the sub-standard writing. I am fully convinced now that between my mother and the cultural body-shaming I experienced, I was sexually abused as in my home. To this day, I experience the symptoms of sexual abuse. To this day any mention of sexual abuse is extremely triggering to me. Maybe one day I'll even have the nerve to ask one of my older sisters if they think they were sexually abused in our home as well. One day I'll even write about how my childhood sexual abuse led to sexual abuse in my adult life. But for now, I've talked about it as much as I can take without having another breakdown.